Bannerman is a medieval action-adventure with challenging combat, rotoscoped 16-bit visuals and a character who seems content to simply stroll along the battlefield at a leisurely pace.
It is being made by a solo developer and aims to explore the darker side of medieval fantasy, one without knights in shining armor and camaraderie between battle-brothers. Here's the trailer and a bit more information, though do be warned, the music will be stuck in your head for far longer than you might expect:
The story premise is simple, slightly silly but effective. You play as a man-at-arms who is left for dead following a terrible battle, and if almost dying amidst enemy territory wasn't bad enough your king's banner has been lost forcing you to undergo an honor-bound quest to recover it at all cost.
Your journey across the war ravaged countryside will be followed with frequent bouts of medieval combat, rendered with 16-bit rotoscoped animations (similar to those found in the old Prince of Persia or Flashback) and designed to be both brutal and challenging with techniques supposedly mimicking those from actual historical resources. You will be expected to mind your positioning, the timing of your attacks and what exactly the enemy is doing in order to counter it and deliver the killing blow.
Outside of taking down entire armies through the use of your longsword you will also be able to chat with a variety of fully voice acted NPCs. Their role hasn't been explained but I'd imagine they are there to both further the story and to offer you a reason to delve deep in to abandoned ruins filled with all sorts of riff-raff.
This'll end well
Bannerman is currently going through Steam Greenlight and if you think its the sort of game you might enjoy then you can help it out by voting for it. The expected release date is somewhere between mid to late 2016.
On a slightly different note, if you're interested in learning about game development and all of the challenges that come with it, Michael Vensleve (the dev behind Bannerman) has made a series of videos detailing his progress. Have a look: